Emily Bazelon’s Book, “Charged” Has the Potential to Change the Criminal Justice Reform Debate
“Emily Bazelon is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and the Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School. She is the bestselling author of Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy and a cohost of the Slate Political Gabfest, a popular weekly podcast. Before joining the Times Magazine, Emily was a writer and editor for nine years at Slate, where she cofounded the women’s section, ‘DoubleX.’ She is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School. She lives in New Haven with her husband and her younger son,” according to her website.
Kevin Price, Host of the nationally syndicated Price of Business show and Editor at Large of USA Business Radio, has been keeping an eye on the work of Bazelon and has expressed enthusiasm about her latest book, Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration. Price said “there is something wrong with the US Justice system, and Bazelon gets to the heart of it. The United States only has five percent of the world’s population, but 20 percent of its convicts. That statistic alone should raise red flags. Bazelon explores the reason this situation exists and offers meaningful reform to change things”
Price is not the only one excited about Charged:
“[Charged] achieves what in-depth first-person reporting should: it humanizes the statistics, makes us aware that every courtroom involves the bureaucratic regimentation of an individual’s life.”— The New Yorker
“An important, thoughtful, and thorough examination of criminal justice in America that speaks directly to how we reduce mass incarceration and increase fairness . . . comprehensive and beautifully written, a book every policy maker should read.”— Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy
“An insightful, highly readable examination of local prosecutors—who they are, what they do, and how they do it . . . At a moment when electing progressive prosecutors has become a cornerstone of the movement against mass incarceration, this book offers reasons for both caution and hope.”— James Forman, Jr., Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Locking Up Our Own
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The American criminal justice system was intended to be a contest between two equal forces, the prosecution and the defense, with judges playing a referee role to ensure a fair fight. That Norman Rockwell type image does not have any semblance with the reality in the courtroom today, however. More often than not, it is prosecutors more than judges who drive the results of criminal cases. They are accountable to virtually no one and make most of the key decisions during a court case. These include choosing the charge against the defendant, setting the bail, and determining the plea bargain. They often literally choose who goes free and who goes to jail. It goes even further, often choosing who lives and who dies. The system wasn’t designed for such unchecked power, and in Charged, Emily Bazelon reveals how it is the underreported force behind both enormous injustice—and the missing piece in the mass incarceration puzzle.
According to a statement from the publisher:
“Charged follows the story of two young people caught up in the criminal justice system: Kevin, a twenty-year-old in Brooklyn who picked up his friend’s gun as the cops burst in and was charged with a serious violent felony, and Noura, a teenage girl in Memphis indicted for the murder of her mother. Bazelon tracks both cases, exploring every phase of the criminal justice process—from arrest and charging to trial and sentencing—and, with her trademark blend of deeply reported narrative, legal analysis, and investigative journalism, illustrates just how criminal prosecutions can go wrong and, more important, why they don’t have to.
“Bazelon shows how prosecution in America is at a crossroads and details the damage overzealous prosecutors can do—and also the second chances they can extend, if they choose, to Kevin and Noura and so many others, allowing them to make things right in their own lives. She follows a wave of reform-minded D.A.s who have been elected in some of our biggest cities, as well as in rural areas in every region of the country, put in office to do nothing less than reinvent how their job is done. If they succeed, they can point the country toward a different and profoundly better future.
“In Charged, Emily Bazelon mounts a major critique of the American criminal justice system—and tells the story of the movement for change.”
